Basketball: Breakers crash to heavy defeat

The Breakers fell to the second straight loss on Friday night. Photo / Getty Images

Oscar Forman returned to haunt his old club as the Wollongong Hawks shut down the New Zealand Breakers 73-57 in a table-topping Australian National Basketball League (ANBL) match tonight.

The Hawks take the outright competition lead after the teams entered the match at the North Shore Events Centre sharing the same 5-1 win-loss record.

Renowned for their fluent offence, the Breakers were completely nullified with ball in hand, recording the lowest score in their history.

Some staunch Wollongong defence and a lack of fluency from the hosts combined to send the Breakers to a second straight defeat after opening the season with five straight wins.

While they showed more heart than in Sunday's 114-74 hammering at the hands of Perth, they were still disappointing in front of a large home crowd.

The party was ruined by smooth forward Forman, easily the best offensive performer from either team, shooting 21 points to complement his 11 rebounds.

Forman, who played 125 games for the Breakers before joining the Hawks in the off-season, benefited from his team's slick, unselfish offence, which effectively found open shooters all night.

In contrast, the Breakers struggled to incorporate returning star Kirk Penney back into their system and all of their big names fielded cold shooting hands.

The three-point shooting statistics were especially stark, with the visitors landing two from 15 compared to nine from 22.

Guard Kevin Braswell led the Breakers' scoring with just 12, while an out-of-sorts Penney managed 11, including just four in the second half.

Braswell, CJ Bruton and Thomas Abercrombie all contended with foul trouble, with the latter pair particularly quiet by their standards although Abercrombie snatched eight rebounds.

Wollongong led 17-15 after the first quarter before a nine-point streak early in the second stanza gave them a buffer that was never threatened. They led 35-27 at halftime and held a double-digit advantage through most of the second spell.

The Breakers will be keen to stop the rot when they host Gold Coast on Thursday next week.

- NZPA